15th July

Still unbelievably hot weather here so bird life remained elusive. My bird list is stuck on a pathetic 91 species. I still haven’t seen Little Owl this year which seems particularly strange but does seem to reflect areal decline in their numbers with birds missing from most of their traditional sites.  

Butterflies, on the other hand, seem to be doing well this year. In the Magic Garden and surrounds today I saw around a hundred white butterflies, mostly Small and Green-veined White…

Around half a dozen Ringlets and 30 Meadow Browns..

11 Peacocks (none yesterday), two Red Admirals, four Small Tortoiseshell, one Speckled Wood and best of all, by the How Beck, a Small Skipper. It’s actually a common species nationally but the first I’ve seen in Ainderby for a number of years.

Slightly further afield Chris had relocated a nice colony of White-letter Hairstreak down Myers Lane. Only managed one (poor) shot but as it is a species I rarely see I will include it...

Dragonflies included three Emperors hawking the pond, a couple of Southern Hawkers, which the emperors drove off, and a Brown Hawker which easily held its own against the Emperors.

And I must start to get my head round hoverflies…

My only mammal of note today was a cracking Stoat which was sheltering from the sun under a cattle trough in the Bottom Fields, unfortunately it did a runner before I got chance to photograph it.